1. religion and spirituality
2. islam

PROGRAMME DE CONFERENCE
Identities on the Move: The Caucasus Between the
Local, the Regional, and the Global. With a Focus on
Azerbaijan
Conférence organisée conjointement par
l'Observatoire du Caucase, le Center for Security and Energy
Research de l'Université Qafqaz et
l'Institut d'archéologie et d'ethnographie de l'ANA
les 15 et 16 mai à l'université Qafqaz
Entrée Libre (En anglais)
Inscriptions: cmahmudov@qu.edu.az
Center for Security and Energy Research at Qafqaz University
Institut Français d'Études Anatoliennes/Observatoire du Caucase
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Azerbaijan National Academy of
Sciences
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
IDENTITIES ON THE MOVE: THE CAUCASUS BETWEEN THE LOCAL, THE
REGIONAL, AND THE GLOBAL
WITH A FOCUS ON AZERBAIJAN
PROGRAM AND ABSTRACTS
Qafqaz University, Baku, May 15-16, 2015
Venue: Khirdalan, Hasan Aliyev street, Faculty of Economic and Administrative
Sciences (IBF), room 310
Please register: cmahmudov@qu.edu.az
1
Organizers
Center for Security and Energy Research at Qafqaz University - Baku
Institut français d'études anatoliennes (IFEA)/Observatoire du Caucase - Baku
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Azerbaijan National Academy of
Sciences (ANAS)
Organizational committee
Aliagha Mammadli
Ceyhun Mahmudlu
Adeline Braux
With the support of
Qafqaz University
Institut français d'études anatoliennes
Academic Swiss Caucasus Net
Ambassade de France en Azerbaïdjan/Campus France
Under the presidence of
Ms Anne de Tinguy, Full Professor at the Institut national des langues et civilisations
orientales (INALCO-Paris)
Mr Aliagha Mammadli, Head of the Department of Ethnosociological Research at the
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of ANAS
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PROGRAM
MAY 15
9.30: Get together and welcome addresses
10.30-12.30
Chair: Anne de Tinguy
Migration and Diaspora Issues
Chen Bram, Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, The Hebrew University Jerusalem
Diaspora and Transnationalism Revisited: The case of Azerbaijani and Georgian Jews
Adeline Braux, IFEA, Caucasus branch - Baku
Lifestyle and 'Styled Life': How Youngsters of South-Caucasian Descent in Russia Get
Transnational
Maroussia Ferry, EHESS - Paris.
Changing Social Identities: The Case of Georgian Circulatory and Return Migrants
Teona Mataradze, Martin-Luther University - Halle-Wittenburg; Assistant Professor,
Faculty of humanities, Tbilisi State University
'Friendship of People" During Political Crises
12.30-13.30: Lunch break
13.30-15.00
Chair: Sofie Bedford
Social and Identity Changes in Azerbaijan
Nicolas Crosnier, INALCO - Paris
Urban Renewal of Baku. Representations and Clashes in Society About the New Face of
Baku
Raphaëlle Mathey, EHESS
Social and Identity Changes in Azerbaijan in the Last Decades Through the Prism of
the Evolution of Funeral Rituals
15.00-15.30: coffee break
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15.30-17.30
Chair: Clément Therme
Minority Issues and Intergroup Relations
Ketevan Khutsishvili, Institute of History and Ethnology, Tbilisi State University
Moslem-Christian Interrelations: The Case of Shared Sacred Sites in Kvemo Kartli
Region (Georgia)
Karli Storm, University of Eastern Finland
Analyzing Manifestations of and Responses to Ethno-national Identity in a Border
Region: Individual and Group Encounters with Ethno-national Identity in Kvemo
Kartli
Kutbettin Kiliç, Indiana University-Bloomington
Ethnicity, Ethnic Identity and Ethnic Political Behavior: A Conceptual Typology
19.00: Dinner (for participants to the conference only)
MAY 16
10.00-13.00
Chair: Kutbettin Kiliç
Identity and Nation-building in Azerbaijan
Sofie Bedford, Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University
Turkey and Azerbaijan: One Religion—Two States?
Aliagha Mammadli, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography at the ANAS - Baku
About some factors of stability of ethnic identity of Azerbaijanis during the Soviet
period (in Russian)
11.15-11.30: coffee break
Ceyhun Mahmudlu, Center for Security and Energy Research, Qafqaz University
Ethnic Origin and Azerbaijanism
Aydin Balayaev, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography at the ANAS
The Revival of Islam in Azerbaijan and Its Influence on National Identity (in Russian)
13.00-14.00: Lunch break
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14.00-16.00
Chair: Adeline Braux
Azerbaijan in Its Regional Environment
Nariman Karakhani, Qafqaz university
Civilization values of Azerbaijan and its relationship with other civilizations
Clément Therme, CETOBAC/EHESS - Paris
The Azeri question in historical and cultural perspectives: the view from Iran
Serkan Yolacan, Duke University - Durham
A seesaw across the Black Sea: Turkish-Azeri encounters in old frontiers
Laurent Vinatier, Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University
Russia’s new unpredictability: a chance for peace in Nagorno-Karabakh
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ABSTRACTS AND BIOGRAPHIES
The Revival of Islam in Azerbaijan and Its Influence on National Identity
Aydin Balayev
For decades, Muslim peoples were backward in the development of their national
identity compared to the West. This may be explained by the peculiarities of Islam,
which has been their main path of identification for centuries and well into the 20th
century. This has led to the levelling out of national and racial peculiarities, thus
becoming a barrier to the formation of national identity. It was only with the efforts of a
number of members of the intelligentsia educated in Europe that the situation was
overcome. As a result, a national ideology was born which presumed the refusal of
former modifications of the category “nation” in Islam, and instead took for granted the
move from a religious to a national identity. In the last years, a reverse process of
revival of religious identity has been taking place. This represents a real threat for
national statehood. First and foremost, the restoration of the position of Shia islam in
the country represents a particular threat. Akhmed Bek Aghaoglu considered Shia islam
as Iran’s national religion, an expression of the Iranian spirit that had resisted to the
destructions brought by Arab invasions, and a means for Persians to keep their specific
identity in a large Muslim world. In this regard, Shia Islam has always been a means of
Iranian influence among Azerbaijani masses. And the fact that it was given the status of
an official religion in Iran precisely during the rule of a Turkic dynasty –the Safavidsdoes not change this state of affairs.
Dr Aydin Balayev graduated from the Department of History of the Azerbaijan State
Universityand
in
1982
he
started
working
at
the
Institute
of
Archeology and Ethnography of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences. In
1983-1985, Balayev was a researcher at the Department of Ethnography of Moscow
University. From 1985 he continued his doctoral studies at the Ethnography Institute of
the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow, graduating with a PhD in History in 1988.
Turkey and Azerbaijan: One Religion—Two States?
Sofie Bedford
As a result of Soviet anti-religious campaigns, the Azerbaijani Muslims were at the time
of independence to a large extent not very knowledgeable about their Islamic faith.
Because of this, foreign religious influences played an important part in the country’s
post-Soviet religious revival. Due to its predominantly Muslim demography and
geographic location, missionaries from neighboring Iran and Turkey as well as some of
the Gulf countries arrived in the country en masse. This foreign religious influence and
new approaches to religion increasingly became seen as something harmful. While the
authorities portrayed brands of Islam from North Caucasus, Iran and Saudi Arabian as
dangerous, work of Turkish Islamic groups was seen as less threatening and as such
faced fewer restrictions. Considering that Turkish groups in general are advocates of the
Sunni branch of Islam, while the majority of the Azerbaijani Muslims traditionally
6
adhere to the Twelver Shia School, this appears counterintuitive. This paper sets out to
provide a more thorough understanding of what made ‘Turkish Islam’ the preferred
choice for the political leaders of independent Azerbaijan as well as highlights and
considers the reasons for this amicable reception of Turkish religious representatives
gradually coming to an end. It suggests at least part of the explanation is to be found in
the state-promoted notion of a ‘unique Azerbaijani Islam’ that in recent years seems to
have become more substantial and overt.
Dr Sofie Bedford has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stockholm University and an
MA in Peace and Conflict Research from Uppsala University. The title of her doctoral
thesis is Islamic Activism in Azerbaijan: Repression and Mobilization in a Post-Soviet
Context (Stockholm: Dep. of Political Science 2009). She is currently a researcher at
Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University and her
research interests include religious-, political- and social mobilization and elections in
the post-Soviet sphere. She has previously been associated with for example the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the Swedish Defence
Research Institute, and the United Nations Development Program in Baku. She is
currently a committee member of the Association for Friends of the Swedish Istanbul
Institute and part of the Editorial Board for the academic journal Baltic Worlds.
Diaspora and Transnationalism Revisited: The Case of Azerbaijani and Georgian
Jews
Chen Bram
In this paper I analyze the various connections of immigrants from Azerbaijan and
Georgia in Israel to their Land of Birth. This includes various transnational connections,
in several levels: personal, communal, cultural and state-oriented connections.
Moreover, symbolic aspects are of special interest in these cases and they reveal specific
features of intergroup relations in the Caucasus. I argue that these cases shed light on
important features of identity formation, immigration and transnationalism in the
Caucasus. The similarities between the Georgian and Azerbaijani cases suggest some
wider characteristics of intergroup relations and transnationalism in the Caucasus,
notwithstanding important differences and specific features of each case. At the same
time, the cases of Azerbaijani and Georgian Jews challenge the common discourse on
‘Diaspora’ both in Israel, and to certain degree- these cases also challenge some
assumption of the theoretical discourse on Diasporas in general.
Dr Chen Bram is an anthropologist, with additional training in organizational studies,
sociology and comparative religion. Currently research Fellow at the Truman Institute,
the Hebrew University, and lecturer at the internatinal MA program in Immigration
Studies in Tel Aviv University. Combining his academic interests with practical
applications, previously he worked as an engaged and applied anthropologist. In 20122014 Bram had been a Schusterman Visiting Professor at the University of Florid and at
James Madison College of Public Affairs, Michigan State University (2012-2014). In
2010-2012 Bram was a Research Fellow at the Van Leer Institute, serving as academic
manager of the research group, “Anthropological knowledge: relevance, use and
potential.”
7
Lifestyle and 'Styled Life': How Youngsters of South-Caucasian Background in
Russia Get Transnational
Adeline Braux
Migration has been undoubtedly one of the major phenomena that has affected the postSoviet space since the collapse of the Soviet Union. These migrations also contributed
to create new networks between the former centre and peripheries, thus maintaining
human links while other links tend to get looser and looser as time goes by. According
to the last population census carried out in the Russian Federation in 2010, 603,070
people in Russia declared themselves “Azerbaijanis”, 1,2 million "Armenians", and
160,000 "Georgians". What was originally perceived by the actors of migration as a
temporary and male mobility often turned into a migration of settlement since many
migrants did finally create a family in Russia, or did bring their family from their home
countries. Thus, a “second-generation” was brought up –and sometimes born - in
Russia, far away from a country their parents still long for years after having emigrated.
In this regard, immigrant families from the Southern Caucasus do not follow different
patterns from immigrant communities that have already been researched in Europe or in
the US. One of the basic issues these families are faced with is how to deal with the
emergence of this “hyphenated generation”? We will therefore focus on the young
generation and see how they experience the transnational arenas they live in. We will
emphasise especially the way they tend to reify their identities and try to cope with the
symbolic, cultural, and social spaces they experience, praising "Kavkaznost'", and at the
same time expressing a form of local attachment to the place where they live in Russia.
Dr Adeline Braux holds a PhD in Political Science from SciencesPo Paris (2011). Her
dissertation was entitled "Migration, transnationalism and new diasporas in the postSoviet area: South-Caucasian immigrants in the Russian Federation". Since January
2014 she has been working in Baku where she is in charge of the Caucasus branch of
the Institut Français d'Études Anatoliennes (IFEA/Istanbul). Her current fields of
interest include migration issues in the South Caucasus (return migrations in
Azerbaijan, new migration related legislations), and migrations from the post-Soviet
space to Turkey.
Urban Renewal of Baku. Representations and Clashes in Society About the New
Face of Baku.
Nicolas Crosnier
Proposal analysis of the Azerbaijani society through the transformation of the capital.
As in Beirut and Dubai, the urban landscape of Baku is undergoing a major
transformation. The choices made in architectural terms, the economic and financial
aspects of these housing projects are a subject of study. The project is to sketch a
geopolitical portrait - understood here as conflicts over control of space - of the
Azerbaijani society. My presentation will focus on urban renewal policies in the capital
of Azerbaijan, Baku. In every capital of the world, the political system written in the
walls and the national narrative highlights its political project. The situation in Baku is
no exception to this fact. The Azerbaijani society is the complex result of multiple
8
influences. Thus, the face of this city has been experiencing a radical transformation
with the influx of wealth following the opening of a pipeline designed by Americans
and Europeans. Urban renewal is accelerating, real estate projects multiply, and seem
more and more ambitious. The "pharaonic" style of some buildings has drawn the
attention of the European public during the broadcast of the Eurovision song contest last
May 2012. The interest of this paper is not that description, it can highlight elements of
the regime and social relations in the capital, which would be very difficult to study
using traditional methods of human sciences. Who wants to analyze the Azerbaijan
society must interpret what is seen and what wants to be seen in the capital, which
includes almost all the vital forces of the country. I therefore propose to describe certain
characteristics of the Azerbaijani society through its capital, Baku. Trade like any sector
of the economy are under the influence of political power. I will also discuss the
development of new commercial spaces. The malls, such as luxury shops, do not have
to be profitable. What is sought is the appearance of wealth. Political and economic
hierarchy is found in urban planning, in the arrangement between prestigious projects
on the waterfront and small buildings constructed hastily in the more peripheral areas.
Finally, public diplomacy concepts, urban marketing, are operative to analyze urban
policies in Baku, particularly in the context of the construction of an international
identity for the city as the seat of many different sport events.
Ph.D candidate in Geography at the Centre de Recherches Europes-Eurasie (CREE) at
the Institut National des Langues & Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) in Paris,
France, since 2012, Nicolas Crosnier has already completed three fieldwork periods in
Baku between 2011 and 2013. His interests include landscapes and their use as a tool of
public diplomacy and cultural diplomacy for actors of urban revitalization of cities. He
has been interested in the many uses of urbanism and architecture in local politics.
Professor Anne de Tinguy (presidence) holds degrees from the University of Paris 1
Sorbonne, INALCO, and Sciences Po, and a Ph.D. in political science (1981). Former
fellow (1989-1990) of the Institut des hautes études de défense nationale (IHEDN).
Former Research Fellow with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(CNRS); Tenured Professor at the INALCO since 2005. Academic Director of the joint
Master’s in International Studies between SciencesPo and MGIMO, Moscow since
2002; Associated Researcher at the Centre d'études et de recherches internationales
(CERI/SciencesPo-Paris); Vice-President of the French Association of Ukrainian
Studies since 2000; member of the editorial boards of Anatoli and Hommes et
migrations. She specialises in Russian foreign policy, Ukrainian politics, and East-West
migrations.
Changing Social Identities: The Case of Georgian Circulatory and Return
Migrants
Maroussia Ferry
Both the topic of migration and the Caucasus area entail analyses in terms of ethnicity
or cultural diversity. Despite the very relevance of these phenomena, we will here focus
on another type of identity which is of a social and economic kind. We believe Georgia
9
is a prime example of this paradigm, having once been one of the most prosperous
republic in the Soviet Union, and quickly becoming one of the poorest after
independence. The middle class’ loss of wealth and social standing, and the lack of
upward social mobility, has had a significant impact on social stratifications, both in an
objective and in a subjective point of view. Within this specific socio-historical space,
people started to migrate as their own world fell down, along with their living standard,
social status, values, and feeling of security. Migrating has therefore to be seen as one
among all survival strategies that had to be quickly invented in the 90s. This emergency
strategy lasted and somehow stabilized, but kept some of its emergency features, among
them migration, which is still linked with other survival strategies, and owes a
“fragmented temporality”. Migration moves (especially the ones towards Turkey
because of geographic proximity and a relax visa policy) are very often caused by debts
following, for example, the failure of small businesses, or happen to be the means for
opening a new business. The instability of Georgian economy, consisting on short
cycles and on the importance of loans issue in everyday life, is to be seen also in
migration rhythms and expectations. Outward migration from Georgia, undertaken
following the fall of USSR, can be therefore understood in the frame of a historical
downward mobility that reshapes the views migrants, including the falling
“intelligentsia”, have on their own social identity and on their position within a rapidly
changing society. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork research in Turkey and Georgia
with circulatory and return migrants, and more precisely on the formal analyses of
biographic interviews, this paper will address the issue of the Georgian Post-Soviet
social “malaise” but will also deal with the symbolic strategies, such as narratives, used
to somehow overcome it. Thus, outward migration from Georgia will be analyzed at the
crossroad of a global historical event, that is to say the fall of USSR and the difficulties
faced by the populations during the 90's, shared in various ways by the all post-Soviet
space, and of local issues, that is to say the inner reshaping of social identities within the
specific Georgian society.
Maroussia Ferry is a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at the ́cole des Hautes ́tudes
en Sciences Sociale (EHESS), Paris, and a fellow at the French Institute for
Demographic Studies (INED). She carried out fieldwork in Georgia and Turkey,
investigating how the feminization of migration impacts post-Soviet Georgia. Her
publications include an article for the Caucasus Analytical Digest and a contribution in
a volume of Security, Democracy and Development in the South-Caucasus co-edited by
Ghia Nodia and Christoph Stefes and published by Peter Lang Publishers (to be
published).
Azerbaijan’s Civilization Values and Its Relationship with Other Civilizations
Nariman Karakhani
The reality of today is much more tragic since we are witnessing cruel resistance to
value system. Interactions of civilizations are a very complicated, ambiguous, irregular
process as a result of which, under certain circumstances, self-civilization can be
amplified and conflicts among the people will become more serious. But it is in the
majority of cases occurring in the opposite direction: growing interactions and
cooperations, and even a convergence of civilizations. The essence of value analysis of
10
society allows us to understand the genesis, characteristics, and trends of development
of various social and ethnic groups.The problem of inter-civilization interactions in the
context of globalization has been studied in numerous academic studies. The impact of
cultural and civilizational environment on international relations is taken into account in
forming the concepts related to the contemporary world.This article discusses the
civilizational values of Azerbaijan through the prism of inter-civilizational relations. A
combination of Turkism with Shiism defines the cultural and civilizational specificity of
Azerbaijan. Another problematic question is the clash of global interests and its
influence on decisions of Azerbaijan foreign policy in the issues at stake in the region.
In his monograph "The Grand Chessboard", Brzezinski called Azerbaijan a geopolitical
fulcrum of the Caucasus, that is to say a state similar to the "Eurasian Balkans", in other
words the Caucasus and Central Asia. Azerbaijan - a bridge connecting East and west,
as well as a place of clash of civilizations, mainly known in world politics through the
oil factor.
Professor of International Relations Department at Qafqaz University since 2009, Dr
Karakhani has completed his BA and MA in International Politics and received a
doctorate degree in International Relations from the Inter-regional Academy of personal
management, Ukraine. He spent 4 years as a Research Assistant in the Inter-regional
Academy of personal management. He is the author of several scholarly publications on
civilizations: dialogue among Western and Muslim civilizations, international politics.
Moslem-Christian Interrelations: The Case of Shared Sacred Sites in Kvemo
Kartli Region (Georgia)
Ketevan Khutsishvili
Historically Georgia has had close political, cultural and economic connections with its
Islamic neighbors. Naturally century-long relations caused the formation of certain
different stereotypes on the popular and the state levels. The level of tolerance was high.
The reason was laid not only in the state politics, but also in the necessary creation of
the corresponding conditions for the representatives of various religious groups to live
peacefully in Georgia. During the Communist period, state policies were based on
internationalism, wholly ignoring religion, which resulted in the explosion of religious
energy after the collapse of the USSR. In such an unstable situation, religion on the one
hand turned into a disintegration factor but at the same time the traditionally elaborated
system of peaceful coexistence came into play and some ethnographic practices
received an additional meaning. One of these practices is the habit of sharing sacred
sites. The paper will be based on the ethnographic data collected in Kvemo Kartli region
in Georgia, where ethnic Azerbaijanis (Shia Moslems) and ethnic Georgians (Orthodox
Christians) used to be accustomed to share, and are still used to sharing, sacred sites, in
some cases carrying out common rituals, in other cases separately visiting the same
places. The common everyday life, needs and difficulties are supporting the tolerance
towards these shared religious practices. In the last decades the normative religion is
taking over and the practical religion is stepping behind, thus the century long everyday
practices are under the threat of disappearance.
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Professor Ketevan Khutsishvili studied at the Department of Ethnology of Ivane
Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (1984-1989) and at Essen University (1995-1996).
In 2005 she was granted the scientific degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences
(dissertation on „The Influence of Religious Factor on the Ethno-cultural Identification
and Civil Integration (The Case of Modern Georgia)”. She acts currently as the Head of
the Department of Ethnology of the Institute of History and Ethnology (since 2006 to
present) and is Professor of Ethnology at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University,
Faculty of Humanities, Institute of Ethnology (Georgia) (since 2006 to present). Fields
of interest: ethno-cultural processes in the Caucasus, religious issues, ethnic identity and
relations, IDP studies.
Ethnicity, Ethnic Identity and Ethnic Political Behavior: A Conceptual Typology
Kutbettin Kiliç
For any scholarly enterprise, one of the major tasks is to establish a conceptual
vocabulary that clearly conveys analytical narratives to the readers. This is mainly the
case for theoretically driven studies. When we talk of theories in social sciences, we, in
fact, implicitly deal with concepts as the building blocks on which theoretical
propositions, thus theories, are constructed. Concepts as analytical categories help us
develop a learned and organized approach to the real world. Without well-defined and
carefully crafted concepts, it is hardly possible to develop theories with strong validity
and explanatory power that helps us better comprehend the complexities of phenomenal
world. Nor is it possible to successfully and effectively communicate our ideas with the
community of scholars who work on the same phenomena. Thus, for a study with a
theoretically informed research design, starting with the clarification and
conceptualization of the founding concepts is basically a requirement to be met. This
scholarly enterprise largely proceeds in two ways. First, one can simply predicate on the
conceptual vocabulary that is already present in the extant literature. This is a common
practice in all scholarly fields because in time all fields, more or less, reach an
agreement on the definitions of some conceptual vocabulary that carry fairly the same
connotations for the practitioners of the field. Therefore, as time proceeds, chains of
“coordinated definitions and cumulative conceptual refinements” are likely to pave for
more stable concepts and “a shared understanding of categories,” which, in turn,
diminish the need for forming new concepts. Second, empirical reality or “phenomenal
world” can necessitate some changes in the “semantic field” so that scholars may need
to form new conceptual categories to reestablish a correspondence between phenomenal
and semantic fields. This often happens when we face empirical puzzles that existing
conceptual tools grow insufficient to contain, need to be narrowed or extended in order
to address the empirical phenomena under investigation. In such situations, forming
new concepts emerges as a necessity. In this study I follow the second path by
proposing a new conceptual vocabulary in understanding the connection between
ethnicity and political behavior. While carefully elaborating on Kurdish issue in Turkey
as well as on its reverberations in the political landscape of the country, I came to
realize that extent conceptual frameworks grow insufficient to explore the workings of
Kurdish ethnic identity on the ground, something that led me to problematize the
concepts proposed in the literature and to come up with a new conceptual vocabulary. I
do not imply that extent conceptual tools fail altogether to establish a correspondence
12
with the phenomenal world. Nor do I claim that the concepts proposed by previous
work must be completely abandoned. But I do wish to say that the existing conceptual
vocabulary needs to be modified or re-conceptualized in order to match the empirical
reality of Kurdish ethnic politics. To this end, I, first, start defining and accordingly
conceptualizing the terms ethnic category, ethnic group and ethnic identity. Second, I
construct a new conceptual typology on the basis of these concepts that identifies four
ethnic identity forms adopted by ethnic individuals ethnic settings.
Kutbettin Kiliç obtained his B.A. in International Relations from Beykent UniversityIstanbul and an M.A. in the same field from Middle East Technical University. During
his M.A. studies at Middle East Technical University, he completed a master’s thesis on
Iraqi Kurds. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Middle Eastern Studies Program at
Indiana University-Bloomington. His research interests include ethnicity and
nationalism, civil wars, social movements, Turkish politics and Middle Eastern Politics.
In his dissertation he focuses on the connection between ethnic identity and voting
behavior in Turkey.
Ethnic Origin of Azerbaijanism
Ceyhun Mahmudlu
To understand nation building in modern Azerbaijan it is very important to analyze the
process from the perspective of nationality policy during USSR. Before the occupation
of Azerbaijan by Bolshevik Russia, an independent Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan
was established between 1918-1920. Although it aimed at the establishment of equal
opportunities for each of the ethnic groups living in the country in order for them to
develop their ethno cultural values, its short period of existence prevented it to realize
the programs to related ethnic policy. After the annexation of Azerbaijan to USSR, the
ethnic policy (in USSR named as “nationality policy) of this supra national state began
to be really implemented in all fifteen Union's republics. That Soviet ethnic policy
undoubtedly focused on the assimilation of all ethnic groups under the one
supranational unit, “sovetskiy narod”, and the method of realization of this policy was
the reduction of their number. But in fact none of the ethnic groups in Soviet geography
did disappear from the map. However, he strict Soviet administrative system was able to
control and reduce possible tensions among ethnic groups. After the collapse of this
super state though, newly independent post Soviet countries became victims of this
policy. Most of the nation states formed as result of the ethnic policy of the Soviet
Union faced problems which were also the result of this policy. Azerbaijan was no
exception since it suffered tragically from ethnic separatism. This situation during and
after the Soviet Union directly influenced the formation of the ethnic policy of this
newly independent state.
Assoc. Prof, PhD in History. Dr. Mahmudlu is the Head of the Department of
International Relations and the director of Qafqaz University Security and Energy
Researches Center. His teaching and research specializations comprise a variety of
topics such as Diplomatic History, International Organizations, Energy policy and
Security, Ethnicity and Research Methods in Social Sciences. Dr. Mahmudlu received
his PhD from the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Archeology
13
and Ethnography, and holds MA and BA in European Studies from the Azerbaijan
University of Languages. He takes an active part to the curriculum development and
joined programs organized in the U.S and Hungary. Besides, he was a fellow of faculty
development program granted by the U.S. Department of State. Within the frame of
international scientific research programs. Dr. Mahmudlu joined projects in Japan and
U.S. He is the author of several scientific articles related to such topics as regional
security, conflicts and resolutions and ethnicity.
About Some Factors of Stability of Ethnic Identity of Azerbaijanis During the
Soviet Period
Aliagha Mammadli
The paper focuses on some factors that have influenced the stability of ethnic identity in
the conditions of the Soviet regime. Until the end of the 19th century, ethnic identity in
Azerbaijan has had the character of traditional, pre-industrial societies in a peculiar
historical and ethno-cultural context. Particularly, it relied on systems of more concrete
issues, primarily on local social links: family (where stability is determined by the
preservation of large family), community, regional, and so on. Besides, the low level of
geographical mobility in most part of the state actually excluded opportunity for interethnic communication, without which ethnic self-consciousness (the anti-thesis
we/they) either doesn’t appear at all, or appears very slowly under the influence of
irrelevant and unclear information and propaganda. The rejection of ethnicity by the
Soviet system did bore a conscious character and aimed to destroy the main components
of Azerbaijanis’ consciousness, such as origin, historical memory, ethnic symbols and
values. One of the constants that contributed to the stability of Azerbaijani identity
during that period was the celebration of Newroz (beginning of spring), and of the Shi’a
celebration of Ashura. Actually, in the ethnic life of Azerbaijanis these two different
phenomena had the same effects on the ethno-cultural functional level. Observing these
traditions is a kind of demonstration of ethnic identity through ethnic symbolism:
special clothing, dances, rituals, behavior patterns and specific moral values.
Dr Aliagha Mammadli (Anthropology) was born in 1958. He graduated from the
Institute of Pedagogy and was a PhD candidate (aspirant) at Moscow State University.
He is the Head of the Department of Ethnosociological Studies of the Institute of
Archaeology and Ethnography at the NASA.
‘Friendship of People’ During Political Crises
Teona Mataradze
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union the mobility of the population between and out
of successor states has increased. The political crises, ethnic tensions, economic disaster
made millions of ex-Soviet citizens search their ways out of their communities (either
to urban centers, or to foreign countries). According to IOM (International Organization
for Migration), in 2005 there were 1 024,598 Georgians out of the country (which
composes 22.9% of Georgian population) (International Organization for Migration
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(IOM) 2008, 19). Migration of male household members either to capital city or to
Russia was much practiced by the village dwellers during the last 15 years. Migration is
one of the crucial means of fighting with the economic disaster in the locality, but has
its impacts on the political orientation of population towards the receiving state. What
defines the destination of migrants, and even after 15 years of independence, why is the
Russia the most popular and widespread destination for male village dwellers? How do
the locals reflect on the Soviet past and talk about friendship of nations? Can we explain
this migration pattern by the colonial theory? I will try to answer these questions, while
shortly discussing the history of Georgian – Russian relations, the mass deportation of
Georgian citizens from Russia in 2006, and present how Georgian migrants in Russia
talk about states and people during the political crises.
Teona Mataradze graduated from Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University in 2005
with MA degree in Sociology. During 2006-2009 she was a PhD student at Max Plank
Institute for Social Anthropology and a member of the group “Caucasian Boundaries
and Citizenship from Bellow”. Her PhD thesis deals with citizenship and migration
issues. Since 2010 she has been an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology
and Social Work. Since 2015 Teona Mataradze is a head of the Office of Science,
Research and Development of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at Ivane
Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University.
Social and Identity Changes in Azerbaijan in the Last Decades Through the Prism
of the Evolution of Funeral Rituals
Raphaëlle Mathey
Anthropological studies demonstrate that personal values, social relationships, and
indicators of cultural identity are expressed in a symbolic manner in funeral rites. In
Azerbaijan such rites can include as many as ten commemorative events (yas) in the
year following the death. These are critically important events in which allegiances are
made and broken. During the period of political chaos and economic recession which
followed independence, from 1991 to 1996, the yas served as an incubator for a local
identity movement. Political stability, beginning in 1996, and the advent of the
petroleum era, in the 2000s, transformed the country’s face, reordered relationships
between individuals, and today raise the issue of creating a State and developing a
national political project. The study of funeral rites enables one to measure the
magnitude of these changes. The evolution of yas reveals new needs of a society in
turmoil and reflects the fundamental examination Azerbaijanis are undertaking of
themselves, their religion, their European and Oriental identities, and their relationship
to modernity.
Raphaelle Mathey is associated researcher at the the LAIOS/EHESS (Laboratoire
d'anthropologie des institutions et des organisations sociales de l'École des Hautes
Études en Sciences Sociales) and currently works on her PhD on Death rituals in
Azerbaijan. She graduated in Political Science and International Relations and worked
several years in Azerbaijan for various international institutions.
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Analyzing Manifestations of and Responses to Ethno-national Identity in a Border
Region: Individual and Group Encounters with Ethno-national Identity in Kvemo
Kartli
Karli Storm
There are many different forms of individual and collective identity, and each of these
forms plays an important role in the way individuals perceive and experience the world
around them. Ethnic and national identity are two such forms of identity—forms that
serve to group and link particular individuals to one another across time and space on
the basis of certain shared characteristics (ancestry, birth place, mother tongue, religion,
values, traditions, historical narratives, etc.). This presentation examines questions of
ethnic and national identity in a region of Georgia that borders both Armenia and
Azerbaijan and is home to the majority of Georgia’s ethnic Azeri population—Kvemo
Kartli—and explores the implications of narrowly-defined group membership for
ethnically, linguistically, and culturally-diverse societies and their individual members.
The presentation seeks to demonstrate the theoretical and analytical underpinnings of
the author’s plan to conduct fieldwork in the region as well as to examine the various
possibilities and difficulties in researching individual and collective manifestations
of/responses to ethnic and national identity in a globalizing world.
Karli Storm is a PhD candidate and researcher within the Department of Historical and
Geographical Studies and the Doctoral Programme in Russian and Border Studies at the
University of Eastern Finland (UEF). Storm is a two-time Fulbright recipient, having
spent 2009-2010 as an English Language Teaching Assistant at the University of
Languages in Baku, Azerbaijan, and 2013-2014 as a Fulbright Student Grantee to
Finland, during which time she began her doctoral studies at UEF. Storm received her
M.A. degree in 2013 in Russian and East European Studies from Indiana University
(USA) and holds a dual B.A. degree in International Relations and Politics from Drake
University (USA).
The Azeri Question in Historical and Cultural Perspectives: The View from Iran
Clément Therme
The Azeri question became a political issue after the fall of the Soviet Union (1991).
With Azerbaijan Iran's initial difficulties in the bilateral diplomatic relationship
reflected the competitive nature of Turkish-Iranian cultural relationship but also the
divergence between Baku and Tehran regarding the future of the Caspian Sea and its
pollution. Moreover, the Islamic revolution ideology is both religious and anti-Western.
Unlike the Islamic Republic, the post-soviet Azerbaijani state is secular and its foreign
policy's main strategic orientation favours the search of a modus vivendi with the
European Union and the United States. The cultural proximity is reinforced by the
ethnic dimension of Iranian-Azerbaijani relationship since the collapse of the Soviet
Union. Before that, the Soviet Union used Iranian Azerbaijan as a diplomatic tool for
political penetration and to increase its ideological influence. In the 20th century, the
Soviets were particularly active in Iranian Azerbaijan, more specifically in three distinct
periods: 1905-1921, 1941-1947 and 1979-1981. During the last period, Moscow tried to
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benefit from the post-revolutionary disorder, instrumentalizing Azeri cultural opening in
Iran to diffuse Soviet propaganda in Iranian Azerbaijan. After Azerbaijan's
independence in 1991, the first priority of Iranian foreign policy was to maintain the
territorial integrity threatened by some Azerbaijani political groups who claimed to
unify “the so-called thwarted nation – separated because of imperial rivalries and the
vagaries of international politics”. This intervention will shed lights on the historical
and cultural factors that shape the contemporary relationship between Baku and Tehran.
For the historical dimension, I will focus on the Azeri contribution to Iranian
nationalism, especially during the first half of the 20th century. The cultural and ethnic
aspects will be studied through the transnational links between Azeri and Talesh
population living in the territory of the Azerbaijani and Iranian states.
Dr Clément Therme is a Teaching Fellow at Sciences Po, Paris. He is also a Research
Associate at the Centre d’études turques, ottomanes, balkaniques et centrasiatiques
(CETOBAC) and at the Centre d’Analyse et d’Intervention Sociologiques (CADIS) at
the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS, Paris). He is the author of Les
Relations entre Téhéran et Moscou depuis 1979 (PUF, 2012). He is also the co editor
(with Houchang E. Chehabi and Farhad Khosrokhavar) of a book entitled Iran and the
Challenges of the Twenty First Century (Mazda Publishers, 2013).
Russia’s New Unpredictability : A Chance for Peace in Nagorno-Karabakh
Laurent Vinatier
Russia’s recent unpredictable foreign policy course has, naturally, raised certain fears
among its post- Soviet neighbours. Seeing Kremlin decision-makers’ intensified
aggressive efforts to build the Eurasian Economic Union, seemingly at any cost, there is
no guarantee that after “winning over” Armenia and Eastern Ukraine, Moscow will not
turn to Baku exerting pressures to make it join the Union project. The NagornoKarabakh stalemate, in this view, comes across as a specifical vulnerability that could
be opportunely “unfrozen” or “threatened”. To some extent, despite Azerbaijani claims
and efforts to keep a balanced and non-aligned foreign policy, a certain Azerbaijani
dependency on Russia can hardly be avoided but only carefully dissimulated. As the
geopolitical context is in flux this opens for a possible return to conflict resolution
approach – in the shape of renewed Turkey-Armenia-Azerbaijan dialogue. This time,
unlike previous attempts along these lines, facing a threat from Russia, Armenia and
Azerbaijan stand in a similar position and might even share a common goal to reduce
Russian sway on them, and it seems that Baku may even have interest to facilitate a
renewed Armenian-Turkish process. In the light of this, the paper intends to explore the
current state of affairs between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia, with an emphasis on
the Azerbaijani side, as Baku is the one among the different players that need to
radically change its approach.
Dr Laurent Vinatier is a Research Associate at the Centre for Russian and Eurasian
Studies, Uppsala University. He specialises in Russia and the former Soviet Union.
During his doctorate under the supervision of Olivier Roy, completed at SciencesPo
Paris in December 2008, he studied the Chechnya conflict, the diaspora patterns that
have emerged from it, and the political transformations affecting this war zone. He then
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started political consulting, on-ground missions for various non-governmental
organisations and research centres related to conflict-war zones : North-Caucasus,
Turkey-Syria and now Ukraine.
A Seesaw Across the Black Sea: Turkish-Azeri Encounters in Old Frontiers
Serkan Yolacan
This paper follows the story of a Soviet imam from Azerbaijan to probe an interregional historical pattern that undergirds Turkish-Azeri encounters today. Scholars
have looked at similar encounters, though framed them as divorced from the Soviet
past. This paper situates Turkish-Azeri encounters within the historical context of
Soviet-Middle East relations and argues the following: the convergence during the Cold
War of Soviet foreign policy abroad and cultural politics within, provided space for the
“Eastern peoples” of the U.S.S.R. to build transnational connections that have outlasted
the Soviet regime. The paper then locates this Soviet outreach to the Middle East as an
episode in a longer historical trajectory shaped by centuries-long imperial rivalry
between the Ottoman and Russian empires; critical in this rivalry was the allegiance of
Turkic Muslim populations that were caught in-between. As imperial centers competed
for the hearts and minds of their imperial subjects, a seesaw emerged across the Black
Sea - and by extension the Caucasus and Central Asia- fragilely balanced on the Turkic
Muslim populations of Central Eurasia. The collapse of the Soviet Union, though
marking a historical rupture of a global kind for many, only accentuated a historical
continuity seen from this inter-regional perspective.
Serkan Yolacan received his B.A. in Cultural Studies from Sabanci University and his
M.A. in Sociology and Social Anthropology from Central European University. He
worked as a project coordinator at the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation
in Istanbul. Currently, he is doing a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology at Duke University.
His dissertation project focuses on Azerbaijan’s homecoming to the Middle East; he
works among Muslim activists and students going in and out of Azerbaijan.
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